I wasn't necessarily maybe the oldest person there, which is a good thing. Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast. I'm your host, racy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life, that you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting, while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries podcast podcast.

Today I'm going to talk about Halloween yes, it's this week but I'm also going to talk about improv. Now, what should I start with? Well, let me start with the improv. This week I found an old improv group that had resurfaced that actually I started with before I did stand-up. Now, I probably would never have have thought about doing improv again when I had Dallas, our horse. He took up most of my evenings and there's only so much of me to go around, right. But this week I saw a friend on Facebook a friend that I had actually met through the improv group talking about this improv group, this improv company that had long since disbanded, probably. I mean, I'm guessing it was 10 years ago, I mean, I'm guessing it was 10 years ago and I had participated in these classes. They're free classes, so they're not terribly competitive. I mean they're somewhat competitive, right, but they were free classes that started up and they really took a life all their own. They were part of a church group here in Los Angeles. Now I'm not a churchy type of person that's another story for another day but the improv group was not necessarily religious. We didn't sit around and do improv sessions based on the Bible or anything like that, but it was a way for me to get used to performing in front of people. That was really my mindset behind it, my motivation, and ultimately what I found out was that, well, first of all, improv is something where you're a lot more successful if you know the people that you are doing improv with. You have some sort of a connection or a bond or you just know each other.

And so the improv classes that I used to go to and so the improv classes that I used to go to often afterwards the people in the class would go out to get something to eat, and that just wasn't really possible for me because I had other commitments. I had my husband who was maybe waiting on dinner, or I had my horse and he was, you know, bill. My husband was expecting me to go and help him with the horse, so I had to rush off and it really limited the opportunities to further connect with the other people in class class. I also found out that often when you're in an improv class and you participate in the different improv exercises, well, you can be upstaged a lot. Right, you have to share the time and you have to work together, but what I found was that I often had a joke in mind or some sort of a line, but I got upstaged, which was frustrating. Okay, the other thing that I noticed was that, by a large percentage, the women were outnumbered by the men, so it was more of a male dominated activity. It was more of a male dominated activity, which is fine. I didn't understand why there weren't more women in the class, but that's the way of the world.

Anyway, I found this group again. It started up and it's pretty small right now, and my friend who I met actually she was a teacher before has been going and so she was going to go and I felt a little bit better about knowing somebody that was going to be there and I went last night and when I first told my husband earlier in the week that I was going to go, he was all for it. And then last night he was like, oh, you're going now. Yes, I'm going tonight. Yes, you will be alone. But I mean, this is good because, you know, not having Dallas has been an adjustment for both of us. Dallas has been an adjustment for both of us. He was used to having time on his own to practice his guitar and I was used to having time alone as well, or time to do my own things or have my own thoughts. So it's a good thing, but anyway it's a different thing and it's only one night a week, on Sunday. So I went.

I was a little bit, I won't say nervous, apprehensive that's the word. Well, maybe not even apprehensive, but anyway I went. I saw the gal that I know. It was a small group, maybe about a dozen people, and everybody was very nice. I wasn't necessarily maybe the oldest person there, which is a good thing. There was also an older gentleman there, maybe he's not quite as old as I, not a, he's not a kid either. Um, and it wasn't necessarily a competitive group.

I'll say this when I first started going to these classes. Um, before they had classes in different locations. They had classes in different locations, and I went to the one that was by our house in North Hollywood at the time no-transcript, competitive, and you instantly feel like you're behind the mark. Well, this was that. Everyone in that neighborhood was trying to get into the industry. So they were thinner, very thin. They were young and I wasn't heavy. I had lost a lot of weight at that point, but it's definitely older, anyway. So last night I started up with improv again and it was a lot of fun, and the teacher came up to me afterwards and thanked me for coming which was very kind of him and said that I. What did he say? He said that I made some bold choices, which I think was a compliment, and I told him that he had a very nice persona on stage. So it was fun and I'll do it again Definitely. It feels like a safe thing to do and it feels like a good way to just get back into doing something for myself. And the fact that I don't have Dallas, well, still makes me sad, of course, but it gives me opportunities now to do other things, and so that's good.

Halloween is this week and I've gone pretty far with the decorations in our front yard. This year I don't see as many houses decorated in our canyon as I've seen in the past. The reason for that might be twofold. It's been an incredibly hot October. October and also the rates from our power company went up dramatically, and I think that those two factors have probably played into people not wanting to put inflatables up and lights. I don't really blame them, but I have gotten tremendous joy from decorating the house. The people that I've seen and talked to, that have stopped or driven by and stopped taking pictures, videos, whatever, have been very complimentary and I've had great conversations with them and it makes you feel really good that you've done something that have made people happy. That's a good feeling.

That being said, I've put so many things up that it has been a tremendous amount of work, and taking everything down is going to also be a tremendous amount of work. Storing it away in the back of the garage and bringing the Christmas stuff up to the front Get to do it all over again and I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but I did go and buy. I saw a few new things and I did go and buy a few new pieces already for Christmas, because it's going to be here before we know it and it takes my mind off my impending root canal and my impending cataract surgery, which hopefully can still be next year. I mean, I can still see the inflatables, but I can't necessarily read the boxes as well anymore. Those are the highlights for this week.

I hope, whatever you do for Halloween, you have a lot of fun and you stay safe and hopefully you're decorating. Love to see everybody's decorations on Facebook so much fun. Love to see everybody's decorations on Facebook so much fun. And next week, well, we'll tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode, please follow the Only Child Diaries podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on and consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page Only Child Diaries or Facebook Only Child Diaries Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Tracy Wallace and these are the Only Child Diaries.